After
Dark 4.0 was run on my iMac DV SE, 400Mhz machine under OS 9.2.2 with
an 8 meg
ATI Rage card and 512 megs of ram. It was running with all module options
turned to their highest settings and at a screen resolution of 1024X768.

Patches?

Just
for kicks, let me present the system requirements:

Yes

After Dark for OS 9.2.2 and
AD 4.0
This is the amazing, modified version of the After Dark control panel.
It will *now* work on OS 9.04 to OS 9.2.2 thanks to the amazing Daxeria.
Also included is the original AD 4 package and all modules - Size: 17.7
megs.
NOTE: Due to bandwidth limitations, there may be times when
this archive is not available.

After Dark 4.03 -
Size: 812kAfter Dark 4.04 - Size: 780k
(be sure to run them in order)
NOTE: ONLY use these updates if you are running OS 9.0
and below. DO NOT run them on the fixed AD control panel above.
Click above to get the patch

Requires
a 68040 based Macintosh or Power PC running System 7.1 or higher, 5MB of
free Ram; 41MB of free hard drive space, a minimum display of 256 colors.

The
Art Critic makes another assessment...

The
Shadow Agents will creep about your desktop...searching for those
hidden files!

This
is, hands down, the BEST set of screensavers ever to grace the Mac.
After Dark 4.0 consists of 22 modules including such classics as
the Flying Toasters, Bad Dog, Art Critic, Marbles(my personal favorite)
and the Hula Girls. Using the nifty AD Control Panel, you can adjust
various settings on every module(sound volume, frequency of changes,
etc), as well as set up your own personal "randomizer"
scheme that will allow you to run different modules from every AD
set available. Past that you can assign "hot corners",
mute AD all together and test the various modules before choosing
to use them(some modules only run in 256 colors, those that do will
display the "Starry Night" saver with a text message of
"XXX saver will only run in 256 color mode". Using the
demo feature will allow you to test each module out, and disable
those that won't work in your current color scheme).

What's
it all about?
Quite some time after Berkeley Systems abandoned the After Dark project,
a talented programmer by the name of Daxeria replied to my request of partaking
in an experiment to see whether or not PC AD modules would work on the Mac
version. This led to his initial interest in the "AD for OS 9.04 and
above" project. Tracing the problem back to a form of resource compression
that was removed from later Mac OS releases, he was able to decode and replace
the resources, thus making After Dark compatible with OS 9.04 and above!
Many thanks go out to Dax for his hard work, and time spent on this project...you
are a true Mac-man!

With
Messages 4.0, you can customize what can be written.

This
shot does not even remotely do the Swirling Magic module justice.
With *every* pixel moving, it will blow your mind. Click on the
pic for a nice desktop shot though...

Getting
it to run -Whether
you're running OS 9 and below, or 9.04 to 9.2.2, getting AD to run is a
snap!
For those of you going with the new AD for OS 9.2.2 Control Panel, head
over to Mac Gardens and download the package. This comes with all of the
folders, resources and the fixed control panel that you'll need to get AD
running. Just follow the setup guide(I wrote it, btw) and you're good to
go. The only issue you may have, will be with the control panel itself...closing
it, often times, will crash it. Though it is annoying, there's no reason
to worry: It still saves your settings and such, and will continue to run
modules without a problem. I have noticed that if you "Close and Quit"(Apple
Key + W) the control panel rather than just plain quitting(Apple Key + Q),
it won't crash nearly as often.

Now, for those of you running a Mac under OS 9.0 and below: Just pop in
the CD and click on Full Install. It's just that easy. From there run the
AD 4.03 patch, then the AD 4.04 patch to ensure stable running(both of these
patches were released to help AD 4.0 run on OS 9, and did a decent job of
making that happen. Once Apple hit OS 9.04, even the patches couldn't help
AD run consistently, then when 9.1 was released...AD 4.0 would just freeze
the Mac anytime it was opened or activated).

Still Supported?Not
even remotely. Sierra, who
owns the rights to Berkeley
Systems' AD series has discontinued support for it completely. Thus,
the entire After Dark 4.0 set of modules are now considered abadonware
and can be downloaded, free
of charge.

My
rating: 99(out of 100) - You'd be hard pressed to find a more entertaining,
or amusing collection of screensavers this side of OSX. The *only* blemish
on this otherwise excellent screensaver app, are the crashes that will occur,
at times, when closing the AD Control Panel.

Baraka's sleepy thoughts: I like to watch the fish....but
I didn't appreciate the messages...meow.

Bad
Dog, ripping up my desktop...

Evolution
of the Toaster...

Fun
Stuff on the CD:There
is a movie of After Dark Games as well as four demos of the various You
don't know Jack games.

CYb3r W@t can make for a very disturbing
image when you're not expecting to look at your monitor and see
someone looking back at you...not only that, but to also see a block
of text telling you that his "download" is commencing!

PC
Dark? OSX Dark!?:Though it'd be nice if we could all be on a Mac at work,
it's just not realistic. One very hip thing about *every* AD screensaver
pack(except the smaller, theme packs such as The Simpsons, Star Trek,
etc) is that it has both versions on the disc! As long as you are
running Windows Me and below, you can run AD at work...it's a nice
way to stare blankly at the screen...and look like you're doing something
productive. Also a company called EADS
has created an collection of 45 modules for users of the PC version
of After Dark. The package is called "No Longer Dark: Millennium
Edition" and can be downloaded here.
The modules consist of a mix of older AD modules(tweaked to work with
AD 4.0), modules made by users and modules that were meant to be included
in AD add-on packs, but never were. Unfortunately, these modules do
not contain the resource compression to allow them to be used with
Daxeria's AD for OS 9.2.2 Control Panel. Note: This site also has
a very nice "History
of After Dark" section...

For those of you with OSX who are feeling a bit left out, fear not.
Infinisys, the company who
made the Screen Studio application that was packaged with AD Games,
has converted AD and a few of its modules for OSX usage! So far, the
Flying Toasters, Fish, Mowing Man, Mandlebrot, Starry Night, Warp,
Messages, Line Art, Shower, Circles and Fireworks are packed with
the new AD X bundle. It sells for a very affordable $10, and makes
for an excellent trip down memory lane for those OSX-only users.

Finally, a long while back, before the amazing Daxeria fixed the AD
control panel to work with OS 9.2.2, I was reaching out to any Mac
programmers that would listen...trying to get someone to take a look
into why AD had stopped working with anything past OS 9. If you'd
like to read my old info on AD not working on OS 9.0.4 and later,
click on the following: Get
SMAD!